El-P

"Years ago when it first came out, DJ Krush was in my basement in Brooklyn, and I guess he had it before anyone else did here. He brought it to my place and we were recording something, and he showed me the program and I was actually pretty amazed by it. I loved being able to manipulate the tempo without changing the pitch. I mean, other programs had that function, but it wasn't very natural. At the time, Live was really the first program that did that smoothly. Being the tech fiend that I am, I just went out and bought it."

Mentioned in this June 1, 2001 Remix article.

Mics are only marginally important to El-P. He uses a Røde tube mic and a Shure SM54, which he calls “a raw performance mic with dents in it.” He adds, “I've also recorded songs through headphones. Ultimately, what matters is what sounds right for the song.” El-P recommends placing the mic about four or five inches from the vocalist's face, “so you can catch some of the tail end of the sound,” and recording the vocals the same way you would at a rock show: “It's unnatural for an MC to just stand in front of a microphone and spit his shit. Hold the mic in your hand, move around, do what you need to do.”

In this video you see El-P using the Ensoniq ASR-10 at 3:05.

In this video you can see El-P using the Native Instruments Maschine MKII at 5:55.

"getting to knoooooow yoooooou. getting to knoooooow alllll abouuuutt you. @behringer"

In the article "Bomb Tracks: A Hip-Hop How-To," it is mentioned that El-P uses the Røde NT2 microphone, although there appears to be a typo listing it as NP2.

In this interview, EL-P says, that he uses Omnisphere.

At 2:15, you can see it being used to play the records.

at 1:54 in the attached video you can see the 808.

Used on Fantastic Damage and RTJ4, the former mentioned in the album's liner notes. It is also mentioned in this June 1, 2001 Remix article. this May 14, 2012 The Fader interview and this June 12, 2020 Mixdown Magazine interview.

Remix, June 1, 2001, "Bomb Tracks: A Hip-Hop How-To"

Regardless of the source, all of El-P's drums and other sounds go into his Ensoniq EPS-16+ sampling keyboard workstation. He really likes the EPS's variable sampling rate, which ranges from 11.2 to 44.1 kHz. Almost all of his samples go in at 22.3 kHz because, he says, “it just gives it that little edge.” In fact, edge, grit, and a certain stark quality are important elements of El-P's sound. Often he won't even use hi-hats in his beats. “As long as there is a sparse, hard kind of grit underneath it all,” he says, “I can go off and do however complicated a melody I want, regardless of whether or not it ends up sounding sparse.”

(...) In contrast to the two Akai MPC users, El-P loves his Ensoniq EPS-16+ sampling keyboard because he can play his own bass lines on it. He'll sequence a bass line on the keyboard's 8-track sequencer rather than resample it as a loop. And he tries to create distinctive bass sounds: “I'll sample this squelching noise from a guitar combined with a horn, pitch it crazy low, loop the end of it, and play a bass line from that.

Fantastic Damage liner notes (2002)

This album was produced using:

• 1 Ensoniq EPS 16+ Sampling Keyboard
• 2 Technics 1200 Turntables
• 1 Vestax 07 Mixer
• 1 Korg Chaoss Pad
• 2 Shure needles
• 1 Oberheim OB12
• 1 Magnus Electric Organ
• 1 Pro Tools Digi 001 System

The Fader, May 14, 2012, "Beat Construction: El-P"

What type of gear are you using now? Are you mostly inside of the computer at this point or are you using external stuff still?

I use a shit ton of external stuff. ​Pro Tools is the hub, for sure. I have a Pro Tools HD system. I was using Pro Tools LE for a long time but then I started getting offered these remixes for rock bands and shit. I remember I bought Pro Tools HD because I got a Mars Volta [song to] remix and that shit had like 96 tracks on it. I couldn't even open it! But yeah Pro Tools is the hub and I use a lot of external synths. I've had Moogs and Oberhiems and Tritons and a Jupiter 4, a lot of different stuff. It's a rotating cast. You get a synth, you use it, eventually you sell it and get a new one. It's a lot of external stuff and a lot of internal stuff. I have no problem using plugins and [virtual] synths, that's just another resource. If you know how to make something sound good or gritty or different then it comes out of the box and you're in a good place. I still use my EP 16+. [Another] thing that's evolved for me a lot over the years has been noise manipulation. I use a lot of outboard gear—pedals and filters and oscillators—to take a sample, change it and bring it back into the computer.

Mixdown Magazine, June 12, 2020, "El-P reveals how he produced Run The Jewels’ incendiary fourth record RTJ4"

“I knew that I wanted to bring it back a little bit into that realm for me, because I had really separated from that for a long time. When you hear Run The Jewels 3, it’s really the peak and culmination production-wise of me getting away from that to a degree – really shying away from that stuff. So it kind of added a breath of fresh air for me. I broke old the old sampler, the Ensoniq EPS 16 +. I’m always looking for new ways to keep things fresh for me, and sometimes, keeping it fresh is dipping back into your closest of goodies and thinking ‘this could be fun to play around with again.’”

You can see uncle El with the Pocket Piano @ 6:20 on his Rhythym Roulette video.

In this Creators Project article, El-P talks about using a Fender Chroma Polaris, stating, "I used a Chroma Polaris, which is this amazing synth that was at this studio that I had the pleasure of spending some time at in upstate New York".

In a post from El-P's Blogspot, he shows his Dave Smith MoPho Desktop in a photo, captioned, "it can fit in your palm, if you have a huge palm".

In this video you can see El-P making a beat using pro tools at 5:!9.

In this video you can see El-P using the Akai Professional MPK49 at 5:35.

5min 29 second mark you can see the Echo Boy on the attached video.

Posted on his Instagram

On the 2nd paragraph of the article, it’s stated that he uses a Rode tube mic as well as a shure sm54 and could be referring to the NTK tube mic.

Mentioned in this June 1, 2001 Remix article and listed in the liner notes of Fantastic Damage.

Remix, June 1, 2001, "Bomb Tracks: A Hip-Hop How-To"

El-P usually records vocals onto Alesis ADATs, or sometimes into Pro Tools using a Digidesign Digi 001. He'll do a lot of re-arranging of music after recording vocals, “and that's one of the greatest things about having Pro Tools,” he says. “I lay vocals down and then go back and really pick apart the track. It's a beautiful thing if you want to take one snare out at one spot. It's just really easy.” El-P digs the automation of both Pro Tools and his main mixing board, a Mackie Digital 8-Bus. He can't imagine going back to the days before automation. “For years I used analog boards,” he recalls. “I remember the hell of having to mix an entire song where the process was like some kind of modern-dance performance! For four minutes straight you have to twist knobs, do punches, do drops and fader rides — and if you screw one thing up you have to do that shit again.”

Fantastic Damage liner notes (2002)

This album was produced using:

• 1 Ensoniq EPS 16+ Sampling Keyboard
• 2 Technics 1200 Turntables
• 1 Vestax 07 Mixer
• 1 Korg Chaoss Pad
• 2 Shure needles
• 1 Oberheim OB12
• 1 Magnus Electric Organ
• 1 Pro Tools Digi 001 System

At 0:19 El-P mentions he will be using the Korg R3 in this studio process walkthrough. It is used for synth lines in the "I'll Sleep When You're Dead" period.

You can see the Oberheim OB12 in the background behind El-P at 1:00 min.

at 6:23 in thhe attached video you can see the Eventide pedal.

At the 2:35 mark in the attached video you can see the Numark dm1050.

“H-Delay is a constant go-to. I can get simple, useful delays out of it immediately; it never slows my work flow. The analog modes give the delays great character. It's all over Run the Jewels 3.”

In the liner notes of El-Ps Fantastic Damage, he lists the equipment used to make the album, with this item being one of them.

Mentioned in this June 1, 2001 Remix article.

El-P usually records vocals onto Alesis ADATs, or sometimes into Pro Tools using a Digidesign Digi 001. He'll do a lot of re-arranging of music after recording vocals, “and that's one of the greatest things about having Pro Tools,” he says. “I lay vocals down and then go back and really pick apart the track. It's a beautiful thing if you want to take one snare out at one spot. It's just really easy.” El-P digs the automation of both Pro Tools and his main mixing board, a Mackie Digital 8-Bus. He can't imagine going back to the days before automation. “For years I used analog boards,” he recalls. “I remember the hell of having to mix an entire song where the process was like some kind of modern-dance performance! For four minutes straight you have to twist knobs, do punches, do drops and fader rides — and if you screw one thing up you have to do that shit again.”

El has a few photos documenting his acquiring of a Jupiter-8. In this post you can see the Jupiter in full.

Mentioned in this May 14, 2012 The Fader interview.

Eventually I scraped up some money and bought a used four track. Then a little bit later, around 14 I bought a TR-505 drum machine, which was the first real piece of equipment I ever bought in my life.

Mentioned in this May 14, 2012 The Fader interview.

What type of gear are you using now? Are you mostly inside of the computer at this point or are you using external stuff still?

I use a shit ton of external stuff. Pro Tools is the hub, for sure. I have a Pro Tools HD system. I was using Pro Tools LE for a long time but then I started getting offered these remixes for rock bands and shit. I remember I bought Pro Tools HD because I got a Mars Volta [song to] remix and that shit had like 96 tracks on it. I couldn't even open it! But yeah Pro Tools is the hub and I use a lot of external synths. I've had Moogs and Oberhiems and Tritons and a Jupiter 4, a lot of different stuff. It's a rotating cast. You get a synth, you use it, eventually you sell it and get a new one. It's a lot of external stuff and a lot of internal stuff. I have no problem using plugins and [virtual] synths, that's just another resource. If you know how to make something sound good or gritty or different then it comes out of the box and you're in a good place. I still use my EP 16+. [Another] thing that's evolved for me a lot over the years has been noise manipulation. I use a lot of outboard gear—pedals and filters and oscillators—to take a sample, change it and bring it back into the computer.

Listed in the liner notes of Fantastic Damage.

This album was produced using:

• 1 Ensoniq EPS 16+ Sampling Keyboard
• 2 Technics 1200 Turntables
• 1 Vestax 07 Mixer
• 1 Korg Chaoss Pad
• 2 Shure needles
• 1 Oberheim OB12
• 1 Magnus Electric Organ
• 1 Pro Tools Digi 001 System